


your blood is pumping through these veins

by wesoftandfluffy



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Heavy Drinking, Mentions of other characters - Freeform, Mild Angst, Negative Thoughts, Seth is a softie, but i dont blame her, how does anyone heal from what shes been through, kate is going through it, kate is struggling, self hatred, seth doesnt judge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-21 12:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30021489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesoftandfluffy/pseuds/wesoftandfluffy
Summary: Kate doesn't just get to walk away.Or, Kate is suffering and only one person can bring her back to life.- - -Post S3 finale. Title from 'No Running From Me' by Toulouse.
Relationships: Kate Fuller & Seth Gecko, Kate Fuller/Seth Gecko
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	your blood is pumping through these veins

> _ Well I'm alive  
> Your blood is pumping through these veins _

Kate returns to her family home for a second time to find blood still smeared on the floor and walls. It’s her fault that it’s there - she should have cleaned up before leaving with Ranger Gonzalez, but she stills tries to blame everyone else. She blames Scott for how easily he turned against her, even if they have now made amends. She blames Seth for leaving her on the road back in Mexico, even though months have passed since then and she no longer blames him. She blames Richie for coming up to her that day by the pool and then again when she saw him in Xibalba. She blames her dad, her mom. She blames everyone before she blames herself. And then she grabs a bucket, some rags and begins to clean. 

After a week the house looks like it used to, except for the lack of people. The pictures have been reframed and hung back on the walls. The cupboards have been restocked, the fridge filled. She shopped for a family of four without realising, but online videos have taught her how to meal prep and she freezes what she won’t be able to use. Their rainy day money bank will only last so long, though, so she learns to conserve electricity, only turns the heating on when she really needs it and finds the best coupons to use at the store. 

Three weeks after returning home she gets a call from Ranger Gonzalez. He tells her that the paperwork has been processed and her dad is officially dead. His will is being filed and soon her bank account, freshly set up, will be full. She doesn’t say much because his voice sends chills down her spine, brings forward memories she’s trying to push to the back of her mind. She says  _ thank you _ ,  _ hope you’re well _ ,  _ goodbye _ . 

She turns nineteen seven weeks after returning home and uses the blood money in her bank account to buy four bottles of champagne which she finishes in two days. The house is dusty in every room except for the kitchen and the living room where she sleeps. A birthday card arrived in the post from Scott, plain on the outside but full of memories marked by ink on the inside. She used a magnet to stick it to the fridge, but the sight of it started giving her headaches, so she tucked it under the sofa. At night, she dreams of her brother; she watches him playing his guitar on stage, voice raw, and before the performance is over huge bolts are keeping the doors closed and then Scott is biting into her neck and killing her the way she was meant to die back at the Titty Twister. 

Her old school calls her after she’s been home for two months. When she unearths the phone from beneath piles of unopened mail, she listens quietly as she is offered a place to finish her studies. If she needs extra help, they can provide her with a tutor. She could graduate in the summer, four months away, a year after her friends did. She hangs up without answering and then turns the phone off. The silence is good. The house smells like wine. The fridge is empty.

Someone knocks on the door after ten weeks, calls her name. If she wasn’t so drunk she would have gone to see who it was. But her head throbs, her limbs ache. She would rather sleep some more, at least until the sun is replaced by the moon, and so she does. Her head is too fuzzy for any real dreams. No more nightmares. 

Ten and a half weeks after she returned home to blood and loneliness, Kate is woken up by familiar hands. When she opens her eyes, blinking away the sting, she sees a face she never thought she’d see again. For a long moment, she thinks she is back at the church and that she never came home. She has only woken up to Seth Gecko like that once and it was when his blood was running through her veins. 

‘Kate?’ he asks. His voice is like honey, smooth, and she is starving. 

Kate tries to say his name, to great him like he is greeting her, but her throat is sore from misuse and the word evades her. Besides, she doesn’t remember the last time she spoke. Instead, she smiles wide and reaches out for him. She didn't realise how close she was to the edge. She falls from the sofa, almost bangs her head on the floor, but Seth is fast. 

‘Slow down there, Princess.’ His hands are warm against her skin. ‘Been drinking?’ 

This time Kate doesn’t try to answer because her house does that for her. She pretends to look through his eyes and sees the dozens of empty booze bottles and food wrappers scattered around. The sink that has been full of dirty dishes for weeks. The dust that floats through the air, lit up by stray light that peeks through half-closed curtains. She uses her own nose to smell the air, thick and musty and smelling like someone died, the body was left to rot. She's glad she's sitting down, back now against the sofa and Seth's warm hand against her forehead, because the full force of the realisation of what she's become comes at her in full force, bashes against her head like a fist. She closes her eyes. She's not ready. 

'Hey now, Kate,' Seth says, shaking her again. 'Stay with me.' 

He guides her back onto the sofa, uses strength Kate wishes she has to lift her. Her head finds a dusty cushion and sinks into it. She relishes in the darkness behind her eyelids. 

'You've got a nasty temperature going on there.' She hears Seth moving around the room. When she was little she hated how the kitchen and living room were connected, but now she likes how she can hear his steps, his hands rummaging through drawers and cupboards. 'Jeez, Kate...' 

She finally finds her voice. 

'I don't know what I'm doing,' she says, but the lie tastes bitter on her tongue. She knows exactly what's she's doing and how the alcohol, sharp and hot, is the only way to sleep easy. To build the wall in her head that pushes everything back.

She hears Seth come closer again, feels his weight settle onto the sofa by her hip. She opens her eyes, avoids his face and looks down at the glass of water in his hand. Her throat is so dry. 

'Where have you been, Seth?' 

He brings the glass to her lips and she drinks while keeping her eyes on the cool water. 

'You didn't tell me where you lived.' At this, at the rawness in his voice that she has only heard a handful of times, usually when drugs had gripped his mind and the dark felt safe. She looks up. She sees herself in his eyes and something in her shifts at the sight of such familiar suffering, almost a twin to what she's feeling. 

'I didn't?' 

He shakes his head. 'I've been looking for you everywhere.' 

Kate finishes the water, winces at the throbbing in her head. She wants to cry. 

'I'm sorry the house is a mess. If I had known you were coming...' 

'Yeah, well,' he drags his free hand down his face and sighs. 'I'm here now.' 

Then he smiles and Kate, for the second time that day, smiles too.

> _ Have you heard the news  
> That I get to chose  
> How it plays out _

**Author's Note:**

> Kate is strong, but nobody is strong enough to walk away easily from what she went through. Seth didn't have much time in this and I know I was quite vague with a lot of things, but I kind of wanted an open ending where, personally, I imagine Kate and Seth heal together, and putting too much into this felt like it would complicate things. Then, one day, we'll get the scene at the end of the series of them robbing banks together. Hope you like it <3 Sorry for always writing sad SethKate fics :)


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